Hard to reset consumer expectations

Just yesterday in my job at Scripps, we finished a round of Web usability testing and focus groups. As always, we learned a lot that will help us make our sites easier to get around, functionally.

But results of that testing, combined with similar research we ran just a couple of years ago when I worked at Belo, lead me to a disturbing conclusion.

We who run local media Web sites, after 10-plus years in the effort, have failed to enhance our consumers' expectations of those sites.

Consumers in these tests consistently say and demonstrate:

• On newspaper sites, they want the contents of the paper -- all the paper -- preferably organized just like the paper.
• Also on newspaper sites, they want to find the jobs, cars, homes and merchandise just the way it appeared in the print classified ads. When they see listings online that weren't in print (or just look like they weren't in print; we test with non-newspaper readers, too), they start to distrust the whole database as something other than the print classified -- even if it includes all the print ads. This tendency is worse if a category of ads (cars, for instance) is co-branded with a third party.
• On local broadcast sites, they're puzzled when they see listings of cars for sale, even if through a third-party co-brand. The TV station doesn't have classified ads, so why does the Web site?
• On either site type, they look for design and branding cues to tie back to the offline outlet, not to differentiate.

I wouldn't report this if the overwhelming majority of subjects didn't say it and/or show it in their behavior in the tests.

So if your newspaper Web site is just that -- a closely tied digital reformatting of the print product -- you've more or less met your consumers expectations. Ditto for a local broadcaster. Victory, right?

Ha!

It's a victory if you believe the current models for local media can be sustained and grown without major changes in content, business and reach/frequency models. I don't.

And it's a victory if you haven't invested plenty of time and money in building Web-only content, interactive tools, advertising databases and co-brands. But most of us have.

All the usability problems exposed in our testing can be, and will be, addressed. The bigger problem -- that seemingly unbreakable chain that lashes us to consumers' expectations of the old models -- can be addressed only with investment. And I mean investment of an order of magnitude greater than the caretaker staffs and small-scale internal "build" projects most of us put on our Web sites.

For example ...

How about high-six- or low-seven-figure annual marketing budgets for Web sites in mid-metro markets? How about investments or outright acquisitions to enhance our local data sets (all kinds) and tools to grow and maintain them?

Sure, keep on meeting the expectations of the consumer traditionalists. Maintain that digitally reformatted newspaper. That should be the easy part.

But to remain relevant and lucrative entities, we have to be the ultimate participatory information resources in our local markets. And we have to convince consumers to expect that from us.

Tall orders. Thought we were further along than we are. You'll have to forgive me for feeling a bit defeated today.